A first for Galveston Beach Patrol: Water rescue of cow

Updated 12:53 pm, Monday, May 19, 2014

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Chief Peter Davis, Galveston Island Beach Patrol, hands out literature as he does interviews during a media call to address swimming safety at the San Luis Pass, Monday, July 1, 2013, in Galveston. Davis said there are two things that are making the pass so dangerous, a change in water flow from the pass and huge party crowds at the location. ( Nick de la Torre / Houston Chronicle ) less

Chief Peter Davis, Galveston Island Beach Patrol, hands out literature as he does interviews during a media call to address swimming safety at the San Luis Pass, Monday, July 1, 2013, in Galveston. Davis said ... more

Photo: Nick De La Torre, Staff

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Caution signs are posted along the beach at San Luis Pass, where four swimmers have drowned in the past few weeks. Galveston will have more beach patrols and police on duty over the July Fourth weekend.

Caution signs are posted along the beach at San Luis Pass, where four swimmers have drowned in the past few weeks. Galveston will have more beach patrols and police on duty over the July Fourth weekend.

"I felt like I was in a movie or a TV show, where you see things that happen and it doesn't feel like it's real," said Kirpach, an art history teacher in Frisco schools. "We've been diving in this area close to shore for years, and it was just an amazing feeling."

It's only the third time a case like this has ever been reported, the last being in 2009. "These were healthy starfish," said Tony Reisinger, Cameron County Extension Agent for Coastal & Marine Resources with Texas Sea Grant at Texas A&M University.

"It's like swimming with a submarine with teeth," Kelly said. "I mean, it's huge, it's unbelievable down there; it dwarfs everything I've ever seen underwater."
According to scientists at Mote, there is at least one other Great White in and around the Gulf and her name is Betsy.

Scientists are now studying the photos of a rare and gruesome goblin shark accidentally caught in the Gulf of Mexico after they spotted another unusual deep-sea creature lying with the captured beast on the deck of the boat.

After a two-hour battle, the anglers finally got the hammerhead to shore where they noticed its injury.
Friends looked on in amazement as Campus started pulling shark pups out intact and rushing them to the water so they could swim away.

The Bald Cypress forest, protected in an oxygen-free environment for more than 50,000 years, was likely uncovered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said Ben Raines, executive director of the nonprofit Weeks Bay Foundation and one of the first divers to explore the site.

The wreck, its identity and origin still unknown, remains in about 4,300 feet of water some 150 to 170 miles off Galveston. "What we have just completed is the deepest documentation, recovery and excavation of a shipwreck in U.S. waters," said James Delgado, one of eight marine archaeologists aboard the Nautilus.

Covadonga Arias, a professor of microbial genomics at Auburn University in Alabama, found that Vibrio vulnificus was 10 times higher in tar balls than in sand and up to 10 times higher than in seawater.

The discovery of three historic shipwrecks, most likely from the same event, is so unusual in the northern Gulf of Mexico that just about any information gained from their analysis will chart new ground, said a researcher on the project.

"I looked around baffled," she said by phone Thursday from Miramar Beach. "Is this really happening? It felt like something straight out of a movie."
Four days after the mysterious find, despite some promising leads, she's still trying to track down the owner. less

"I looked around baffled," she said by phone Thursday from Miramar Beach. "Is this really happening? It felt like something straight out of a movie." ... more

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A first for Galveston Beach Patrol: Water rescue of cow

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During his 30-year career with the Galveston Island Beach Patrol, Peter Davis has responded to his share of unusual calls.

He's helped rescue alligators, pulled to safety scores of dogs and cats after Hurricane Ike, and even put a halt to a pornographic movie being shot on a Galveston beach in the mid-1980s.

Now Davis can add another notch to his belt: the dramatic rescue of a cow stranded on a sandbar about a quarter mile out in Galveston Bay at the San Luis Pass.

The drama began on Wednesday morning, when the adventurous cow wandered away from its owner's property. The owner first contacted Galveston police, who were unable to catch the breakaway bovine.

Then, about 1:30 p.m., an island resident called 911 to report a cow lost at sea. Could that be?

"The cow had actually walked out there because it was low tide and made it onto a shallow area," explained Davis, chief of the 110-member Beach Patrol. "It was standing on a sandbar about a quarter-mile from shore."

But there was one small problem: Rescuers couldn't use a personal watercraft because the water was shallow and the bottom uneven, so instead they walked and paddled out to the cow on a rescue board.

"They were hollering, 'Go, go, go, shoo, shoo, shoo!' " Davis said. "When it started moving they followed it and boxed it in. They brought it underneath the shady bridge where the owner picked it up."

It ended up being history in the making - the first water rescue of a cow in the annals of the beach patrol.

"Honestly, nothing surprises me anymore," Davis said. "Every year there's stuff that happens that you never would have thought would happen."

The San Luis Pass on Galveston's West End is a dangerous spot to swim or wade because of its unpredictable currents. It's where the Gulf of Mexico meets Galveston Bay, and is a favorite spot for angling.

Since 2002, the San Luis Pass has had 11 drownings, four of which have occurred since Memorial Day weekend.

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